Let Me Help
by inkedinserendipity
Summary: Strong as she is, even Moana cannot forget the time her best friend looked her in the eyes and told her that she was not enough.
1. Chapter 1

There are gonna be two parts to this: one from Maui's point of view, and another from Moana's. Just, y'know, for extra feels.

A quick headcanon that I've shoved into this fic: Mini-Moana's linked to Moana, as a literal representation of her. Which comes in super handy when Moana's having a nightmare, because Mini-Moana can just poke Maui until he wakes up like "hey, Moana's having a Bad Time™, might wanna help her"

Also, cookies to anyone who gets the fandom reference in the title. (Let me know if you get it!)

* * *

When Maui jolts awake, there are clouds blanketing the sky. Readjusting to the lack of light is a process of several minutes, of rubbing eyes and yawning and wondering what, exactly, woke him at such a late hour. There is no one around him, not in his _fale_ , so Maui's laying back down to go to sleep when his shoulder itches. Tentatively, too. Like the movement is unsure.

"What is it," Maui slurs, shifting himself more comfortably on the ground. If it's another kite malfunction he's going right back to snoring.

Then the itch happens again, but this time not on his shoulder. Right over his heart.

It takes a couple seconds for Maui's sleep-addled brain to process the movement, but when he does, he springs to his feet. There's only one reason his little tattoos would be waking him so late at night. "Moana?" he asks the air in general.

On his chest, Mini-Moana nods, rubs her arms uncomfortably. Maui pauses only to grab his hook - it's gotta be a nightmare, going by Mini-Moana's expression, but he can never be too prepared - and pushes out from his _fale_. He kinda stumbles a bit as he goes, weariness still clogging his reflexes.

Maui ducks first into Moana's _fale_ , finds it empty. He's not too surprised. Curly's probably up and out for a walk. She tends toward the beaches on nights like these. Maui tucks his hook by his side and jogs lightly toward the shore.

He hits the shore outside Moana's _fale_ , turns left toward the back side of the island. From there he circles the perimeter, ducking and weaving through the trees, just out of sight of the water. In a couple places where the trees are too dense to actually see the ocean line, where the waves break and roll gently over the shore, he turns himself hawk and soars over the brush.

About ten minutes have come and gone when Maui hears Moana talking. Not just anything, actually - his name.

"…just worried Maui was right," she's saying, and it must not be too bad if she dreamed about him. Unless it's the one about him and Tamatoa. Curly hates that one. "I know it's dumb, but sometimes when I'm lying awake, y'know, I start thinking. Remembering."

Maui's about to step out of the underbrush, push off against the trees and work out whatever's bothering her, when he spots the ocean in front of her. It's not looming over her like it normally does - no, it's perfectly eye-level. And he must be spending way too much time around humans because he thinks it looks _sad_ , which is preposterous because it's nothing more than an irritating gel of water.

"One second I'm on Motunui and the next I'm out on our boat again. I look to my right and the sail is torn and Maui's hook is cracked and he…" Moana's voice trails off and suddenly, all too late, Maui notices the tears staining her cheeks.

Then her words register, then he really listens, and he nearly stumbles physically backward. It's no leap of logic to work out where she is, just what she's seeing.

His heartbeat is pounding rapidly in his ears. There's an itching on his chest that means Mini-Maui and Mini-Moana are staring at him but he really doesn't care because the water is swirling around Moana, like it's trying to comfort her, like it's trying to protect her.

Like it's trying to protect her from _him_.

He gets that feeling after a meal too large, like he's eaten too much _paifala_ , nauseous and ill. His legs try to collapse out from underneath him but everything else is locked in place from some strange combination of horror and shock and a truly odd outside point of view that says, entirely too calmly, that Maui really should have seen this coming.

"He really thought he was going to die," Moana says, pulling her knees to her chest in a series of motions too weary for her young heart. He thinks it can't get much worse and instantly tries to un-think that because of course it can, and it does with rapid abandon. Because then she opens her mouth and from it come his own words full of hate and anger and grief _so you can prove you're something you're not_ and this time Maui does stumble backward, hardly registering that something breaks underneath his feet because _Moana told him she was okay._

She lied.

Even from so far away, Moana's words are remarkably calm and steady, if a bit quiet. "I can't really blame him for leaving, I guess," she says to the ocean, like it's a fact of life, like Maui doesn't regret that decision every time she flinches when he moves his hook too fast. "I mean, if I spent a thousand years on some hunk of rock trying to get my hook back I'd probably leave too. I'm lucky he even came back."

He kind of wants to laugh. He really does, he can feel the urge welling up in his throat, because what sort of twisted logic is that? He's a bit gratified to see the ocean shake its head sharply, like it's angry, like it's indignant on Moana's behalf.

"I was a bad friend," she explains like she can read that fact in the stars as easily as she navigates using the stars of Tilafaiga. "I pushed him too hard," she continues, oblivious to Maui's frozen horror. "I knew he wasn't prepared to face Te Ka, not really. And I - and then when we were facing Te Ka," she sniffs, "you know, the first time, I could've turned around and I just didn't listen. I didn't listen to him. What kind of friends don't listen to each other?" she asks, like she genuinely needs an answer, and it's cruelly funny because Maui's asking himself the same thing.

For a couple of seconds Maui just stands loosely, staring blankly at the horizon. He's dreaming, right? This is a dream? Maybe he's the one having a nightmare. There's no way that Moana has been hiding this from him. She would come find him, right?

Doesn't she trust him?

No. No, there has to be a good reason that Moana isn't telling him what's going on, there has to be because Maui trusts Moana with his life and surely, surely Moana does the same. If this were a problem, something that happened a lot, she would tell him. She would.

When Maui comes back to himself, the ocean is gone. He stands, readying himself to step forward, to do _something_. He can't just leave Moana there facing the water like it's her last lifeline back to a canoe. Maui loosens his grip on his hook, steps out of the forest line and opens his mouth and hears his own words, but not from his own throat.

"The ocean chose wrong," he says, but it's not him it's _Moana_ , it's Moana facing the ocean and telling herself these things, these things that he said _four years_ ago in the middle of the night like they still haunt her, and Maui - Maui never knew.

She turns and there's a smile on her face and every single word that Maui knew to say leaves his head because that is not a happy smile, that is a smile full of ghosts and nightmares and he never wants to see it on Moana's face ever again. She turns to head back to the village, like she's okay, like she can just go back to sleep, like this is _normal_ , and runs right into him.

"Oh!" she gasps, stumbles backward a few paces. Still dazed and upset and sick, Maui watches her assemble her warrior face. From him. She is putting up her warrior face against _him_. "Maui! Hi, um, I hope I didn't wake you, I was just…uh, I was just talking with the ocean! Y'know, gotta make sure we get to Hehena on time."

And as though the situation could not get any more terrifying, she smiles up at him. The change is instantaneous - one second there is grief and self-doubt, and the next there is cheer and joviality and Maui wonders, briefly, just how often Moana's joy is faked.

She's lying to him. She is standing feet from him and lying to his face. She has no idea what he's heard.

How much, exactly, does he not know?

"Um…Maui, are you doing okay?" she asks quietly, taking a few cautious steps toward him, and it's all he can do not to step backward because there are tear tracks on her face she's tilting her head to try to hide and he put them there.

"How can you ask that?" he whispers into the quiet, trying and failing to understand how on earth that is a logical question. How is she concerned about _him_?

"I mean, you look kind of off…" she trails off awkwardly. "Sorry, I just -"

"Don't apologize," he growls, and all that tension and anger from earlier comes up and chokes him. "Do not apologize, Moana, _how can you ask that?_ " he asks, and then realizes that his words have turned into a shout and Moana stumbles away from him with fear in her eyes and shadows in the reflections behind her eyelids that mean she is not seeing Motunui.

No. If Maui had to guess, Moana is leagues and leagues away, alone on the open sea, with a sail torn on her right and hawk feathers drifting down toward the placid surface of the ocean in front of her.

Maui curses, anger ebbing away, and reaches out toward her before remembering her flinch and pulling back like he's been stung. "Oh Gods, Moana, I'm so sorry," he whispers, half to himself and half to the nighttime air.

She suspects, he catches her glance flitting to the broken branch and back and recognition lighting her eyes and also something _sad_ like she's sad for him and for the first time in four years Maui just kind of wants to cry.

"You weren't talking about Hehena."

"What?"

"With the ocean."

Moana tucks her hair behind her ears, looks down. Looks away from him. "Yeah," she admits softly.

For a few seconds, Maui can't even breathe. Then he straightens, turns toward the darkened horizon coated in gloomy clouds, and battles down a hysterical urge to laugh. Because she is lying to him and she has something to hide and she does not trust him.

There is only one question left, really, so he asks it. "How long?"

"A little while," she confesses, and that's the worst answer she could have given because it is a non-answer and that means that Maui will not like the truth and he thinks he knows what it will be but he asks anyway, voice tired and defeated.

When she says _four years_ he can't even bring himself to be surprised.

His tattoos are still and silent. Just like the rest of the forest, like the judging stars and the watchful horizon, they lend nothing to this conversation, and Maui almost wishes there were some sort of judgment because then he could yell back and scream and rage.

"Hey," Moana says quietly, stepping forward like she still wants to help, "it's okay."

"No, it's not."

"Maui, I'm fine. Seriously," she tells him, like she expects him to believe her now that he's caught her with a false smile on her face. Her tears have not yet even dried. "It's just when I'm stressed."

"You're not fine!" he shouts, like the words are tearing their way from his lungs. "I had no idea! I had no idea that - Gods, Moana, you're losing sleep over this, you're coming out to the ocean," he can feel his hands clenching to fists at his sides because he just cannot believe that he did not see, "you're coming out to the ocean because you're dreaming about what I said? Please tell me you've told someone about this! Someone who's not - who's not a decapitated head of water!"

"About you leaving? No, I…I wouldn't do that."

"You _have_ to, Moana -" he grits because beneath all the anger at himself he is concerned because this is not good.

"No!" she shouts back fiercely, righteous anger lending power to her voice, and it sends chills down his spine because she is furious but at least she is not still pretending to smile. "I will not, Maui!"

"Why not?"

"Because they'd be angry!"

What, for seeking _help?_ "No they wouldn't, they'd be glad that you told them! You can't hide things like this, Moana, these sorts of things build up and eat at you from the inside. Trust me, I know." Maui balls a fist against the bridge of his nose, like crushing the cartilage will make him feel better. She's making the same mistakes he was. These sorts of things can't be ignored or else they fester and eat away and leave nothing but a sticky residue of resentment and hatred and Maui can say with complete honesty that he would rather die than see that happen between himself and Moana. "You - even if…Gods, Moana…"

Realization lights her gaze. "I don't mean mad at _me_ ," she explains, and Maui's heart drops all the way down to his toes. Her gaze falls to the side, away from Maui and his hunched shoulders and his clenched fists. "I meant…you. I didn't tell anyone because…it wasn't fair to you. For years you'd just been trying to win love, and you tried _so hard_ and, I guess, I wasn't about to let one mistake turn people against you."

Maui just stares at her. His eyes are wide in his face and he's not even sure why he's surprised, at this point, at Moana's selflessness. He has taken so much from her and she just keeps giving and he wonders what will happen when she dries up.

"You…you did everything for us. For humans." She gestures vaguely toward Motunui, silent behind him. He can't tear his gaze from Moana's face because she's in pain, actual empathetic pain, like she's trying to take his frustration and grief from him and alleviate it through nothing more than the power of feeling really hard. "I didn't want one little mistake to ruin that. We - we judge too fast and don't think enough and I really wanted my parents to like you, I guess. So I didn't tell them. I couldn't."

For him. For him, Moana had told no one. For four years she'd been coming out to the ocean as her only solace and however she protests that it's only necessary when she's stressed she has been breaking down to the ocean and not to him and not to anyone else, keeping secrets from him because she did not want to hurt him.

Maui turns his stare to the ground, lost. Millennia ago, Tamatoa's horde had started as a little pile of gold trinkets. A small glittering heap, tucked away unobtrusively in some part of his cave when Maui would visit Lalotai. Like the crab had shoved them away, out of sight, before Maui arrived.

Maui didn't know what to say. How to tell Tamatoa that his obsession, so quickly burgeoning, was obvious. Was devouring him. So he didn't. And with every visit, the pile grew and grew and grew.

Maui did not know just how far the gold-fever had corrupted his friend until Tamatoa was a friend no longer. Tamatoa was too far gone, too different, and Maui had not realized. He asked for Maui's hook for his collection and Maui refused, and on that day where Tamatoa lost a leg Maui had lost someone he thought to be a friend.

This, Maui vows, will not happen to Moana. She has no gold-fever and no light of greed in her eyes, but she is keeping secrets. He does not know what is in her little pile of secrets; but Maui has made the mistake before of letting secrets build, of being unworthy of confidence, and he will not do it again.

He does not know where he lost her trust, but he would cross the horizon itself to get it back.

He makes his voice soft again, keeps hurt out of his tone. "I get why you didn't tell your parents," even though it makes no sense, not really. "But…why didn't you tell me?"

Moana looks away from him for a long, long time. It's a bit like being stretched out, like balancing along a blade, because there is so much that Maui wants to say but there are other things shuffling to the front of the line, demanding to be said first and he's not sure if he wants to yell or rage or sleep or cry or just do nothing at all, and he does not know what will happen if he goes one way so he keeps himself spread thin over all at once.

"It would've hurt you," she says eventually.

"It would've hurt _me_?" he repeats. "Moana, what I did - what I said reduces you to tears, to coming out to the ocean at the dead of night, just because you don't want to hurt _me_?"

Moana shrugs awkwardly. That's enough of a confirmation for him.

"Don't - don't worry about me, Moana. I'm fine. I've been around for years, and…Moana, I want you to be able to talk to me," and he's begging now, definitely begging, but this is Moana so he does not care. "I don't want you to hide things from me because - because you're afraid they'll hurt me. You're more important than that."

Behind her, the ocean swells up and out of the sea, shivers toward him. For so long, this body of water was her only comfort against him.

Gods, he would trust Moana with everything. She has seen him at his lowest and loved him still, and all this time, Maui had not even known that he was still bringing her down. All this time, she was trying to protect him from himself.

"I'm so sorry," he apologizes, and again. It doesn't begin to cover what he actually wants to say but he does not have the words. He's always been bad with words, with emotions in general. It is to Moana that he turns when he _feels_ because he trusts her with everything. Now, trying to convince her to do the same, his own eloquence runs dry.

He has no words of his own. So he uses hers.

" _Ohana_ ," he says, and the word settles comfortably on his tongue. He sees her eyes widen at the sound of it. "I didn't know what that word meant until I met you. It's acceptance and trust and I _want_ you to be able to trust me. Even with things you're afraid might hurt me. Gods, Moana, I would rather that a hundred times over than for you to keep suffering in silence. I want to help, but - but I can't if you don't let me."

He swallows, hard, and keeps seeing the silhouette of her back against the ocean as she looked toward the horizon and repeated words that she still hears in her nightmares. His voice cracks. "Please. Let me help."

The silence stretches, pressing and lengthy, and Maui bows his head under the weight of it. Despite himself he hopes that Moana can trust him in this and his teeth clench, eyes screwed shut, hoping and praying that Moana will let him in and let him help.

Moana says nothing. Maui is about to give up when he feels something warm press against his forehead.

Shocked, he blinks his eyes open, and finds Moana's closed against his. "Okay," she breathes, like a promise. "I will."

The tension rushes out of Maui in a single breath. Just like that, with three words, Maui finds that he can breathe again, can crinkle his mouth upward in a smile, can set his hands on Moana's shoulders.

"Thank you," he says, finally warm, and her unspoken _you're welcome_ floats between them like a breath of life.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey."

The ocean pokes its head out of the water at her, regards her for a long while, then turns a pointed gaze toward the stars.

Moana huffs a quiet laugh. "Yeah, yeah, I know," she tells it fondly. "I'm supposed to be sleeping. I just...couldn't."

For a moment the water stirs nervously. Moana sits against the ledge, letting the pads of her feet skim the water. The ocean's great head rears up, out of the ocean, pulling eye-level with her. It burbles in concern.

"Not nightmares this time," she tells it, and wishes that could be good news. "I couldn't even drift off that far. I guess it's...I'm really worried about this whole convention thing and I'm pretty sure one of the Chiefs wants to kill me and I just don't want to leave Motunui, you know? Kinda want to bury my head in the sand," she chuckles quietly. "Sometimes I feel like that would make things easier."

The ocean bobs forward a little bit, wrapping around her legs in a gentle caress. Moana musters a smile for it, trying to make it as real as she can, and runs her fingers along the top. Idly she dips her fingers in, almost drumming against its head, until it pulls back. It looks at her for one long moment, and turns its head inquisitively.

Sometimes Moana wonders if the ocean knows her better than she does. "You're right, that's not all," she confesses. She pulls her legs out of the water and tucks them against her chest, setting her chin on her knees. "I...you know, that thing I keep...it's Maui," Moana admits quietly.

At least the ocean doesn't shiver with anger this time. The first few times Moana had come to the ocean after some nightmare, some night too long spent in the clutches of memory, the ocean had been furious with its demigod. And Moana had been conflicted because it was _nice_ , knowing that there was someone who would defend her. But on the other hand, she wanted to leave it all in the past. What happened happened, and Moana can't change that - she just has to make her peace with it.

Because no one knows that Maui abandoned her. It was easy enough, during her first recountings, to skip over his betrayal. In her story she would move straight to Te Ka, telling them that in the first fight Maui held her off for long enough for Moana to restore the Heart. It was easy enough to forgive him.

Forgetting, Moana has learned, is harder.

"And I'm fine, I really am," she says, "but I just can't help but remember sometimes."

Even Moana's parents do not know. There was little she had wanted more, when Maui first swooped down to the shores of Motunui, than for her parents to accept him. So she just...didn't tell them the truth.

"And with this whole thing coming up, it makes me wonder if I'm really the right person to lead. Sometimes I just don't listen to people. They have good advice, but I tend to take my word over everyone else's. I'm afraid, I guess, of thinking I'm better than them. Of, y'know, seeing myself as more than they are. Of..." she trails off, buries her forehead in her knees. "Of disregarding my family."

Moana, of course, could not confide in Maui.

It would hurt him, to know that his words still haunt her sometimes. In her darkest moments, when she wonders if she is worthy to uphold the legacy of her ancestors, if she's really right to be Chief, if she is as good a friend as she thinks, when the doubts and anxieties and fears accumulate and keep her from sleep, she can hear him still. _The ocean chose wrong._

She doesn't want to hurt him. So he does not know.

Besides, it would be utterly unproductive. What could he give? She knows he is regretful, and has made it clear he intends to stick around. Sure, maybe he leaves for a couple of months every once in a while, but Moana's fairly certain he's started to think of Motunui as home.

The ocean surges upward, trying to reach her again, and Moana uncurls a little bit to dip her hand into it. Pretends her knees aren't wet as she looks out toward the horizon again. Must be residual seawater. "I'm just worried Maui was right. I know it's dumb, but sometimes when I'm lying awake, you know, my mind starts to wander." Moana runs a hand tiredly through her hair. "One second I'm on Motunui and the next I'm out on our boat again. I look to my right and the sail is torn and Maui's hook is cracked, and he..."

The ocean swirls up and around her arm, brushing against her shoulder. Moana sweeps her hair out of the way, tilts her head a little bit to rest her cheek against the surface. It's only when the ocean brushes gently against her temples does Moana realize that there are still tear tracks on her face.

The night is still and silent. There is not a sound to be heard in the forests behind Moana, not the whisper of a bat nor the ruffle of a bird. Even her people are surely well-asleep by now, content with their families in their _fales_. The wind ruffles through the trees, stirring the branches, but other than that there is nothing of life except her and the ocean.

"He really thought he was going to die." Moana lifts her head from the surface of the water, pulls her knees to her chest once more. "'I'm not killing myself so you can prove you're something you're not,'" she recounts, those words burned into her mind. "He really did, he was convinced that if he turned around that Te Ka would kill him. So...I can't really blame him for leaving, I guess. I mean, if I spent a thousand years on some hunk of rock trying to get my hook back I'd probably leave too. I'm lucky he even came back."

Behind her, something splinters within the forest.

The ocean rears its head up and snaps at her, one sharp nod that splashes her chest with water. Ah, so the ocean _is_ still a bit angry. "I mean, it makes sense. I was a bad friend," she argues back, voice cracking, and the guilt pangs through her stomach again. "I pushed him too hard."

Mist sprays off the ocean as it shakes its head vigorously at her, drawing closer to her face as if it can convince her through sheer physical proximity.

"But I was," Moana argues and pretends she's not crying again. "I knew he wasn't prepared to face Te Ka, not really. And I - and then when we were facing Te Ka," she sniffs, "you know, the first time, I could've turned around and I just didn't listen. I didn't listen to him. What kind of friends don't listen to each other?"

The ocean kinda shakes for a bit, like it's casting around furiously for words and coming up with none.

Moana takes three deep breaths, measuring each one with her heartbeat. She's okay. It's in the past, it's all forgiven, and she's okay.

"It's fine," she tells the ocean ruefully, shaking her head at herself. "I think if I go lay down for a bit longer I'll be able to sleep. Can't keep reliving it over and over again, can I?"

Moana gets doused again as the ocean kinda trembles sadly at her. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll be fine," she says, then steps closer. She scrubs at her cheeks for a couple of seconds before dipping her fingers in its water. As she looks at her own hands the image is distorted a bit, shifted a couple of finger-lengths to the side, and she cracks a watery smile at the sight. "Thanks for listening," she tells it quietly.

Even now, she can hear him. Moana turns from the water, waits for it to plop down into inanimacy once more. Once she's reassured that her friend is gone, Moana smiles to herself. It's not a happy grin.

"You chose wrong," she says to herself, words small as she looks out over the horizon, and sighs.

She lied. Moana knows this routine, she knows that sleep will not come. Her next few hours will be filled with tossing and turning and trying to think of something, _anything_ , other than the waters of Te Ka.

With his words still ringing in her ears, Moana turns toward the trees behind which her _fale_ lies.

And nearly runs smack into Maui.

"Oh!" she gasps, stumbles backward a few paces. She's caught, he's gonna want to know why she's here. Moana needs an excuse fast. In an instant, she flicks her smile back on. It's odd, like she's looking at normal-Moana from an outside point of view, trying to quickly catalogue that Moana's normal traits and assemble her around the Moana of right now, the one who just kind of wants to curl up in her _fale_ and cry. "Maui! Hi, um, I hope I didn't wake you, I was just...uh, I was just talking with the ocean! Y'know, gotta make sure we get to Hehena on time."

Maui looks...off. He's staring at her with eyes wide, like he's never seen her before. Concerned, Moana steps a bit closer. "Um, Maui? Are you...are you doing okay?"

"What do you mean, am I doing okay?" he breathes.

"I mean, you look kinda..."

"How can you ask that, Moana?" he says, and in the silence his words sound almost like a yell. Moana can't help but recoil because he sounds angry. Furious, actually. He hasn't sounded this mad since - since -

Moana blinks, and when she opens her eyes again there is several steps' worth of space between herself and Maui. He's mad, definitely, and she knows rationally that he's not mad at her because he doesn't _look_ mad at her but she's confused and still kind of seeing that old Maui from Te Fiti, he's blurring and overlaying with this one and Moana catches a flash of orange out of the corner of her eye that makes her want to tear up again. "Maui?" she asks, voice trembling, eyes wide.

Just like that, all of his rage deflates, replaced by horror. He takes a step toward her and she stumbles backward before she can still her legs.

"I - oh Gods, Moana, I didn't mean to -" he stutters, actually tripping over his own words, and Moana peers more closely at him, willing her racing heartbeat to calm.

"You weren't talking about Hehena," he says quietly, and Moana's stomach falls out of her chest.

"W-what?"

"With the ocean," he says, and he sounds tired. He gestures slowly toward the ocean like every movement of his wrist ages him another three years. "You weren't talking about our trip tomorrow."

Oh no. Oh no, how much had he heard? Moana should never have come out here, she should have stayed in her stupid _fale_ and just talked to - just talked to herself or something, maybe the stars, not somewhere where Maui could find her.

She has no idea what to say. That seems to be confirmation enough. His face falls like she's physically hit him, and this time it's his turn to take several steps backward.

"Moana," Maui says, and his voice is broken, torn into tiny little pieces. "How long has this been happening for?"

Moana swears internally, resisting the urge to kick up a load of sand. In the four years since Te Fiti Moana has seen Maui like this once, and that was when the old widow Mareana had started shouting at Maui. She'd lost her husband to the sea and blamed Maui for it and Moana will never be able to forget just how Maui looked when she called him scum.

"A little while," she admits, praying that he won't ask for specifics. "But it's okay, really -"

"Moana," he breathes, and there's a tiny little smile curving up his face even as his eyebrows scrunch together like he's been _stabbed_ , "how long?"

"Four years," she admits, and if she'd thought he looked heartbroken before that's nothing on him now. "Maui I mean it, I'm all right, it's only when I'm stressed, it's only when I'm stressed -"

"No, it's not!" he shouts, and she understands some of the horror that had creased his features earlier. "I had no idea!" he says, like the words are tearing their way from his lungs. "I had no idea that - Gods, Moana, you're losing sleep over this, you're coming out to the ocean," his hands are clenching at his sides and he's staring at her like he's never seen her before, like he's lost, "you're coming out to the ocean because you're dreaming about what I said? It's still bothering you, the stupid things I said because I was scared and angry and it's still hurting you, and you're coming out here to the ocean to - Moana, please tell me you've told someone about this!"

"About you leaving? No! I wouldn't do that!"

"You have to, Moana -"

"No!" she shouts back fiercely, righteous anger lending power to her voice. "I will not, Maui!"

"Why not?"

"Because they'd be angry!"

"No they wouldn't, they'd be glad that you told them! You can't hide things like this, Moana, these sorts of things build up and eat at you from the inside. Trust me, I know." Maui balls a fist against the bridge of his nose, like crushing the cartilage will make him feel better. "You - even if...Gods, Moana..."

For a few seconds Moana tries to figure out what he's saying until she realizes. "I don't mean mad at _me_ ," she explains. Her gaze falls to the side, away from Maui and his hunched shoulders and his clenched fists. "I meant you. I didn't tell anyone because...it wasn't fair to you. For years you'd just been trying to win love, and you tried _so hard_ and...I wasn't about to let one mistake turn people against you."

It still nags at her, sometimes, the way that humanity was so quick to turn on him. Hearing his story from his perspective opened her eyes in a way that she does not like to think about, sometimes - because those hateful words had come from people she loved, tearing down the demigod who saved her life. Even her grandmother had spoken of Maui with rage and ill-concealed disdain.

"I definitely couldn't tell my parents," she huffs a small laugh, "and the kids, not them either, and that meant...well, that left no one. Except the ocean.

"And I mean I'm mostly over it, I really am. It's just sometimes," she shrugs helplessly toward the horizon, "when things get bad I...guess I start remembering stuff."

It's a long, long time before Moana looks at Maui again. And when she does, there are unshed tears glistening in his eyes, the small sliver of moonlight bouncing off the sea reflected in them. Though she's young Moana knows this feeling, the way that grief makes her curl in on herself, makes her want to stand still in the sand and never move again. That's the way Maui looks, locked muscles and a face made of stone.

Then he speaks, words almost inaudible in the still night air. "Four years you've been dealing with this, Moana," he breathes. "I understand why you didn't tell your parents, I guess, but...why didn't you tell me?"

That, above all, is the question Moana did not want to answer. An inadvertent grimace flits across Moana's face. "I didn't want you to know," she tells him quietly, stepping toward him and is relieved to see, at least, that he does not step back. "It would've hurt you."

"It would've hurt _me_?" Maui looks at her, then, all wild anger and confusion and hurt. "My - what I did reduces you to _tears_ on a regular basis, because I was upset and afraid and wanted to hurt you and you're worried about _me_?"

For that, Moana has no reply. She shrugs, awkwardly, because the answer is not no and Maui knows that just as well as she does.

"Don't worry about me, Moana. I'm fine, I've been around for years and - Moana, I...I want you to be able to talk to me," he pleads, and Moana thinks that's definitely desperation in his voice. This time he's the one to step closer, close enough that if she leaned forward she could rest her forehead just against his shoulder. "I don't want you to hide things from me because you're afraid they'll hurt me. You're more important than that, Moana, I - I would much rather you be able to talk to me."

For a long, long moment, Moana weighs her options. It's hurting him, this is hurting him already. It would be so much easier to just say yes and keep doing what she's doing. Because Moana doesn't need to tell him _every_ time she wakes up from a dream where he flaps off once more over the ocean, right? Not every time she wakes up in tears, in a panic, because she thinks her best friend is gone again? It's much more simple to just...let him sleep.

But he's looking at her like he's in actual pain, like the mere thought of her hiding these things from him is agony, and this is precisely what Moana did not want.

"I'm sorry," he says, just then into the silence, jolting Moana out of her thoughts entirely. His head is bowed, staring at the ground. "I'm so sorry, Moana."

"It's okay."

"No, it's not," he says. "It's..."

He struggles with words for a long second, obviously rummaging around for the right way to say whatever it is he's looking for. And she expected something stumbling, something ineloquent, maybe even just more silence.

But then he says " _Ohana_ ," and the word hits Moana like a punch to the gut. He smiles, a quick pained little thing, at her flinch. "I didn't know what that word meant until you found me. It means trust. And I _want_ you to be able to trust me." He takes a little step forward, like he's afraid, watching her carefully.

"Gods, Moana, I would rather that a hundred times over than for you to keep suffering in silence. Please, Moana. Let me help."

Moana closes her eyes, pained at his words. It's not that she didn't trust him, it's just that she didn't want to hurt him. And there's a difference, right? She just wanted to protect him, because...because she hadn't trusted him to be able to deal with it.

He's right. Moana opens her eyes, looks at Maui. He's got his eyes screwed shut, his whole body tense, hunched a bit forward like something is pressing down on his back, forcing his face downward.

It will not be easy for him. In fact, it won't be easy for her - these topics are sly secretive things, not meant for the light of day, more comfortably spoken when darkness blankets the sky and prying ears are well-asleep. They are heavy and laden with meaning and as hard to hear as they are to speak.

But Moana starts to think that maybe if she cannot forget then it will be good to be reminded, on these nights, that Maui will not leave again.

For dozens of heartbeats, neither of them move. Then, with a small smile stealing its way over her lips, Moana leans forward that small space to press her forehead against his own.

"Okay," she agrees into the silence. "I will."

* * *

"' _Let me help_.' A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He'll recommend those three words even over 'I love you.'" - Captain James T. Kirk (the _U.S.S. Enterprise_ )


End file.
